Hayley Kiyoko: "I Love Loving Girls, and I Love Myself"

To say Hayley Kiyoko’s fans worship her is an understatement. They’ve endearingly nicknamed the singer “Lesbian Jesus” and made it official with an Urban Dictionary entry and countless photoshopped images of her face edited onto Jesus’ body on social media. (“It's getting out of control, but I'm obviously beyond flattered,” the pop singer, who is openly gay, says over the phone.) They’ve also propelled Kiyoko’s #20GAYTEEN hashtag, from one tweet in December, into a viral movement celebrating LGBTQ+ excellence this year. And of course, they’re thirsty for her music.

Kiyoko, 26, deserves the devout following after making a space for queerness in mainstream pop, acting as a role model to her mostly young fans through celebrating her sexuality in her music. But when she looks back at the journey to releasing her debut album—Expectations, which dropped on Friday—Kiyoko feels indebted to her fans.

“My fans have always been in the forefront, really pushing and climbing with me,” she says. “I mean, I've been unsigned most of my career and they’re the reason why I got signed. They’re the reason why I was able to do my own headlining tour. No one else would take me on tour to open for them. We've really created our own opportunities and platform, so it's my job to see it through and be a good representation.”

Josh Paul Thomas

Kiyoko’s 2015 single “Girls Like Girls” was a turning point for the singer. Not only did it go viral (it has 88 million YouTube views to date), it also made her realize she could fully live out her truth in her music. Prior to this point, especially when she was in a girl group in the late 2000s, Kiyoko felt pressured that she “had to attract men to be successful.”

But since then, she's released two EPs—This Side of Paradise (2015) and Citrine (2016)—and now a full-length album. She openly calls out female love interests in her lyrics (like she does in the sassy track, “He’ll Never Love You”), makes out with girls in her music videos and unabashedly professes her love for women on social media. “Personally, I love the fact that I love girls. That's who I am. So that's not something that I'm ashamed of,” she says. And listeners are flocking—she averages 3.7 million of them on Spotify each month.

Even Taylor Swift is a fan. Kiyoko recently pointed out to Refinery29 that industry execs often question her decision to feature female love interests, while "Taylor Swift sings about men in every single song and video, and no one complains that she's unoriginal." Though Swifties took the comment as an attack at the pop star, Taylor herself defended Kiyoko's bravery in speaking up.

❤️ and respect to @taylorswift13 and all the brave artists out there sharing their truth with the world. I appreciate you. We keep climbing.

In addition to her sexuality, Kiyoko is also upfront about her mental health. After suffering a concussion two years ago, she was diagnosed with post-concussion disorder and depression, which left her struggling to create music. She still gets emotional when recalling that time, and it shows in her song “Mercy/Gatekeeper,” which offers a personal account of the experience. “Nobody can poison my feelings if they're never revealed," she sings in the track.

Below, the California native opens up to BAZAAR.com about her ultra-personal project and inspiring young people to be themselves.

The title, Expectations, is named after her “biggest strengths and weaknesses.”

“I have high expectations for myself, so therefore I hate them. But then also, I have such high expectations that I'm constantly being disappointed by other people, and myself. And so it's this battle of balancing your expectations really. We're all just trying to get through everyday lives. And we're just so hard on ourselves. So, how do you balance that?”

One of most anticipated songs on the album is the track featuring Kehlani, marking a powerful collaboration between two queer women in pop music. The two became friends after Kehlani commented “Marry me” on one of Kiyoko’s Instagrams, Hayley recalled. Once they finally linked up in the studio, it only took four hours to make the resulting duet, “What I Need.”

“We got in the studio and I didn't really know her that well, but we were both fans of each other's work. And we wrote the song in four hours. And I was just like, ‘I love it. Can I put this on my album?’ She's like, ‘Yeah.’ And we've become great friends since then. She's been so supportive of my music. So it was really fun to be able collaborate with her.”

Each track references a different chapter of her life.

“I tackled each track on its own. And I don't like when albums sound the same; like when literally every track sounds like the same song. So I really focused on dedicating each track to a different part of my life and times that I had been going through.

“When you hear ‘Mercy/Gatekeeper,’ that song tackles depression and going through my concussion. I didn't want to have a bunch of songs about the same thing. So I was really trying to separate each feeling and emotion within each track, and vibe. That’s why I'm really proud of this album; I encourage people to listen to it from beginning to end. Every track is like a mini chapter of who I am and what I've gone through up until now.”

She wrote “Molecules”—one of her most personal songs—after her friend was killed.

“It's actually a really dark song. One of my friends was murdered and I could not understand the concept of losing him. And my friend, she read this poem about when people pass on, that they don't leave, but their molecules rearrange and they just change form.

“I was really inspired by that line, that I wanted to write a whole song about that concept of trying to understand loss, being upset about losing someone, and not understanding why. There’s that lyric, ‘So what should I do? All that's left is molecules of you.’ I feel like everyone's lost someone in their lives, whether it was expected or unexpected. Even someone you don't even know.

“You sit there and you're just like, ‘I just don't get it.’ And you go through this cycle of asking yourself, ‘How does this work?’ And you start to question yourself, just trying to cope with loss. I thought it was really important to include that track on the album, because I feel like that's something we all share. It doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, what you like. We've all lost someone and we've all been upset and are trying to process. So I tried to write that song and really create comfort over that loss, and create that feeling of not feeling alone. It’s definitely a very meaningful song to me.”

She directs all of her music videos.

“I really enjoy it because it's something where I write the songs as well, and I'm able to really create this story and world that I see in my head when I'm out writing and working on the music, whether it's a color palette or location, all that stuff. It's really fun to see it come to life and problem solve when things aren't going the way they are supposed to, getting in the editing room and figuring things out. I’m probably gonna continue to do it as much as I can.”

Her fans inspire her to continue being herself.

“It's been a very humbling experience and I'm very grateful to be able to share my truth and have people welcome the truth and also relate to it. And it inspires me to share more. It's important for people to feel accepted and feel validated with their emotions and experiences. So if I can be a small part of someone's positive experience, it really means a lot to me. That I'm able to share that with them, and make that connection. It's really cool.”

She was influenced by strong female songwriters.

“I looked up to like Emily Haines from Metric and Fiona Apple. I was inspired by their stories and their lyrics, and the colors that they were able to create with their music. But it's weird; since I was little, I've always wanted to create and tell stories. Even if I had never been in love before, I was writing love songs and kind of living in this fantasy world. Looking back, it's something that I always craved and wanted. Maybe because I didn't have that growing up, I don't know. But it's just something that I've always been really focused on.”

Amanda Charchian

Though she’s revered as a queer icon, Kiyoko still gets judged and criticized for expressing her sexuality in her art. But that's not going to make her change.

“I love loving girls, and I love myself. It's something that I feel very confident in because I know who I am and what I like, so I feel really good. But, obviously, there is still criticism and people out there are kind of like, ‘Why are you making another video about girls?’ And that obviously rubs me the wrong way.

“There's still a force kind of questioning things. And that's why I do the music that I do, though; to normalize that and just have people be like, ‘Oh yeah, Hayley Kiyoko. I like that music. It's cool.’ And not be like, ‘Oh, there she goes again, liking girls.’ That's not changing. That part of me is definitely not changing. I might change my hair, but that's always gonna be there and I'm hoping that that [criticism] will slowly fade away as I enter the mainstream pop world.”

In the vein of her #20Gayteen hashtag, Kiyoko feels hopeful for women and the LGBTQ community this year.

“I'm really inspired by everyone's motivation to make a change and grow as humanity. I think sparking hope is the most important thing you could do, because we all wanna have something to look forward to. As a musician, my dream has not been to be successful, but to just have the opportunity to be successful and have that platform to get my music out there. I knew that if I had that opportunity, I would be able to get to where I wanted to be.

“So, I think it's really inspiring to see everyone realize that it's something that we need to really focus on, creating those opportunities for women and other people. I'm looking forward to this year. I'm looking forward to the future. You know, with dark times comes the light. We're moving forward. And I think moving forward instead of standing still is creating hope.”

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